From the Bookshelf of Into the Forest…

Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World

Heidi Anne Heiner (editor),

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve

Start date: May 15, 2016

Finish date: July 14, 2016

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May 12, 2016 Margaret rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fairytale-myth-collections

Are you excited thinking about 188 Beauty and the Beast and/or animal bridegroom tales collected in over 800 pages? If so, this is the book for you. Are you a scholar of fairy tales and especially B & B? Again, this is a must have.

I admit, I did not read every single tale--probably more like half. I read the French tales, and all the tales from countries of which I was only semi-unfamiliar with their folklore. I was already familiar with the Beaumont version--the most-familiar version of the tal Are you excited thinking about 188 Beauty and the Beast and/or animal bridegroom tales collected in over 800 pages? If so, this is the book for you. Are you a scholar of fairy tales and especially B & B? Again, this is a must have.

I admit, I did not read every single tale--probably more like half. I read the French tales, and all the tales from countries of which I was only semi-unfamiliar with their folklore. I was already familiar with the Beaumont version--the most-familiar version of the tale--East of the Sun, West of the Moon (which if you haven't read you need to right now (http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/bo...), all of the Grimms tales, and many Italian versions. So I started with the Villeneuve version, the version the more popular Beaumont tale abridged. It's much longer than you think, unnecessarily so, and I definitely prefer the Beaumont version.

Many of the tales use aspects of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, with variations on objects and helpers. The animals also vary--from bears to wolfs to rams to snakes to monkeys to hares and on and on. I love it! I'm in the minority for fairy tale lovers in that B & B is not a loved tale on my part--I find it annoying. However, animal bridegroom and animal transformation tales are my favorites, and I like these better than the well-known B & B tale because the women have more agency, and get to go on some adventures. Again, definitely read East, West if you haven't already. Another favorite from the collection, with a strong bride, is The Monkey Prince, a tale from India. You can read it here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Indian...

One minor quibble, I read this on the kindle, and it did not keep track of how long I had left to read in each fairy tale, but rather in each broad section. This made it difficult for me to judge when a tale would end and if I had enough time to read it. This was especially problematic on the French tales, since they're often quite long and involved.

I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to track down and collect all of these tales. I'm amazed by Heidi Anne Heiner!

Again, this is a great reference for fairy tale lovers and scholars alike. For me, as an avid fairytale fiction reader, now anytime I read a novel or short story based on an animal bridegroom tale, I know all I need to do is pick up this anthology and read the original to see what changes the author made. ...more

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